This is a guest post written by Amy Lizee from Environment911.org:

Rainwater harvesting is not something that is new to society. In fact, “the oldest evidence of roof catchment systems date back to Roman times. Roman villas and even whole cities were designed to take advantage of rainwater as the principal water source for drinking and domestic purposes since at least 2000 B.Cs” ¹

However, as society developed and evolved, the use of rainwater become less and less. Although individuals in the agricultural segment use rainwater to grow their crops and feed livestock, it has been almost completely forgotten in the urban setting.

While rainwater harvesting can be a complex process with high-tech systems, it can also be a simple barrel with a secure lid. Regardless of which form of catchments you choose to use, switching to rainwater provides many benefits to yourself and the environment.

6. Provides a healthier source of water

Rainwater is a naturally pure source of liquid. As it has not gone through any municipal treatment centers or filters, it remains free of chlorine, pesticides and dissolved minerals. This makes it a very good option especially for individuals on low sodium diets or any one with weak immune systems.

5. Water conservation and reducing water demand

Individuals who use harvested water are playing a part in water conservation, which is one of the most important environmental concerns of today. Although the majority of the Earths surface is covered in water, only 2.5% is fresh water and fit for consumption. Of this, “1.6% of the earth’s fresh water is trapped in glaciers and polar ice, which leaves less than 1% in our lakes, rivers and streams for human consumption”. ²

By harvesting rainwater, you are using less municipal water and thereby, reducing your urban consumption. In turn, you are also reducing water demand by removing one home or part of a home from the urban water plate.

4. Supplement municipal water in time of low availability

Linking to the first point, in times of drought or low water supply, homes that harvest rainwater are able to supplement their regular water source during droughts and low availability or even during storms and power outages.

3. Can be used to divert rainwater to toilet flushing or other functions

Not all homes harvest rainwater for the purpose of drinking and bathing, but luckily there are many other areas in which rainwater can be a useful supplement for municipal water sources. For example, rainwater can be harvested and used for lawns or gardens, agricultural fields as well as flushing toilets or doing laundry. Many people don’t realize how much water these daily activities can take up. In fact, “landscaping, laundry and flushing toilets account for up to 75% or more of fresh water used in the average home”. ³ By switching some of your regular activities to rainwater, you will reduce your urban consumption as well as your carbon footprint.

2. Reduce storm drainage loads

This is perhaps the single most important environmental effect of harvesting rainwater. Since a storm drain lacks a filter, untreated storm water often finds itself in varies bodies of water. This has a huge impact on our environment because some of the most common storm drain pollutants included: motor oil and fuel, litter, paint and paint thinners, household cleaners and fertilizers. All of these pollutants affect wildlife and many of them do not breakdown naturally. So, by reducing storm drainage loads, pollution is declined, thereby reducing the impact to our natural plants, wildlife, rivers, streams and oceans.

1. Save money

The usage of water in your home requires energy, which we pay for. When you reduce the usage of urban water in and around your home, you are also reducing the energy costs associated. In some cases, this means a 35-40% savings on your annual household water bill! If the environmental and health benefits didn’t get you, I am sure this one will!

“All the water that will ever be is, right now.” – National Geographic, October 1993

Now that you are aware of the benefits to rainwater harvesting, I am sure it seems like a much more colorful option then it did before. While switching over might seem like a big change, the benefits far outweigh any negative impact.

There are hundreds of ways that we can save the environment each and every day, but all of them require change in the way we do things and the way we view the world around us. By taking what Mother Nature has given and using it in its most natural form, we are connecting to nature and protecting it for future generations.

Environment911.org is an interactive website for individuals to come and discuss the environment from green business to natural disasters. We feel it is important for people to come together and share their thoughts, ideas and visions for the future. The more we can communicate what is happening in our world, the more people can be educated and the more we can progress. Beyond Environment911.org you can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we are continuing to spread the message about our global environment and the impact that we have on it every day. www.environment911.org

1) http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/conservation/outdoorwateruse/recycling/harvesting.htm
2) http://www.gutterdoc.ca/rain-water-harvesting/
3) http://www.tieswithnature.ca/rainwater-harvesting/rain-water-benefits/

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
These plant tanks, or plant grow beds, take up very little space and evaporation losses are very small. The nutrient rich fish water flows through the tubes providing the plants with what they need.

A whole wall has been covered with these plant tubes and connected to large aquaponics fish tanks:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
The fish in my system are also pet fish and live in an ordinary aquarium, so that you can see the fish, but I don’t think the fish actually care whether or not they’re able to look back at the people watching them. And if that’s true you might as well dump the fish in a big black plastic container as shown in the picture above. Just remember that black surfaces absorb energy from the sun and  heat up.

An aquaponic system can be installed anywhere, like for instance right next to a restaurant or hotel to secure an extremely fresh supply of herbs and vegetables:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
The system I built is based on an ebook called Aquaponics 4 You that originated from Hawaii (formerly known as Ultimate Aquaponics Home System) and the University of Waimanalo in Hawaii is experimenting with aquaponics too. Take a look at one of their neat plant tanks, with floats and net pots installed, standing on top of a few layers of cinder blocks:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.

The area is packed with aquaponics tanks, and a solar panel would be a very convenient way of driving your water pump in an outdoor aquaponic system:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
Some kind of marquee placed above your tanks would be a good way to protect your crop against the weather if it’s necessary:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
When you’re building a system and looking for aquaponic supplies you can benefit from all the hydroponic containers on the market already. The large white tank below is from genhydro.com but all the pipes and fittings you could ever dream of is probably also available from the existing hydroponic retailers:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
I grow my aquaponic plants in coconut fiber but many people use LECA balls instead (Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate) – then you won’t need floats and net pots:

Photo by Kanu Hawaii.
Here’s another system installed under a large polytunnel cover, with an artificial fish pond beneath the plant pond:

Photo by Justin Leonard.
The next system has three layers – two layers of watercress beds and a 120 cm deep fish pond (4 feet) at the bottom. The beds are 120 cm wide (4 feet):

Photo by Justin Leonard.
The water circulates slowly through PVC pipes and the watercress filters the water for the fish:

Photo by Justin Leonard.
You can throw as much money as you have at an aquaponics system to keep improving it, but with very little money and reused materials you can get a cheap system up and running. The most expensive part is probably the pump but in small systems it shouldn’t take long to find someone who has a spare that you can have for free.

Photo by hurricanemaine.

The red plastic plate under the lid is just for ventilation to provide oxygen for the seed germination process. I’m using 2 and 3 inch black plastic net pots (5 cm and 7.5 cm) for the aquaponics system, and I’m sowing directly into the net pots:

There are very few nutrients in the coconut fiber material so when the seedlings develop their first true leaves I move them into the aquaponic plant tank where the water is filled with nutrients. This is a good thing about an aquaponics system; you don’t have to replant your seedlings with risk of damaging the roots.

In the beginning I kept a journal of everything I sowed with a serial number on every pot, but it takes a long time to update and since I haven’t got that many different plants in the system I can usually see right away what type of plant I’m dealing with when the seedlings appear, so I won’t be updating the journal anymore. I’ll just focus my energy on getting a truckload of plants through the system instead

The fish in the aquarium connected to the plant tank are thriving. The interior of the tank is beginning to look like a natural environment, although we’re experiencing some really nasty looking algae, with a green synthetic like color. (If you know something about algae classification, please leave a comment below this blog post).

Fish tank and algae pictures:

But the fish seem to be okay with their artificial environment and fortunately they’re algae eating fish.

They’re pumping out fry, actually the third litter in one month. These are some of the blue acara fry, out of a litter of about 200(!):

The plants in the plant tank are doing well too. This is flat leaved parsley stretching for the grow light:

This strawberry plant did provide us with a few strawberries, and sent out a runner which I replanted in a new pot, but then it started to wilt:

I don’t know what happened – I’m sure I gave it enough water. (Get it?… enough water – in the aquaponics system?… Oh I crack myself up sometimes).

But then there’s the chives:

These are the workhorses in the system at the moment, with really long roots, and lots of them.

Note that both the strawberry plants and the chives are from the nursery where they were started in soil, which makes it hard to transfer to an aquaponics system, but we had to get some plants into the plant tank to clean the water for the fish as they where going into the aquarium no matter what. Or, at least Charlotte had a very good opportunity to buy tropical fish of the type she wanted at that particular time.

Both runner and bush beans are growing fast when they are plugged into the aquaponics system:

This is a bush bean type – runner beans are not practical in this particular system as the growing height above the plant tank is limited to 50 cm (20”) because the plant tank is placed just below the ceiling. I’m expecting a good yield from the bush beans and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. It seems like they are growing really well and we haven’t even done any adjustments of the pH value yet.

I can’t help dreaming about a nice big backyard aquaponics system, but after all it’s probably wise to get the basics right before scaling up the system.

Aquaponics 4 You was originally sold under the name Ultimate Aquaponics Home System but it has been relaunched and it now includes a new video that shows you how to build your own system. The main manual is the same though and you can find my review here: Aquaponics 4 You Review

The Eheim 1260 water pump was initially mounted on a custom shelf which began vibrating when the pump was turned on, and then the whole plant tank table began vibrating too, causing an unacceptable noise coming from the system. I tried fitting some scrap EVA foam in between the pump and the shelf, but the annoying sound was still present:

A quick and cheap solution was to suspend the pump above the shelf using bungee cords:

The vibrations in the pump simply cannot transfer to the plant tank table structure and the system is now very quiet. (I’m just wondering how the PC performance guys get away with mounting this beast inside a PC without having a lot of mechanical noise coming form the PC. This particular water pump is used for water-cooled PC’s, but that’s another story ). But don’t get me wrong, I really like this pump – it’s sturdy, powerful and stable.

Another small thing left to do before the system was complete was to install another suction hose filter, as this pretty one clogged up in a matter of days:

Fortunately we consume a lot of coriander spice so I found an empty glass where the lid would fit perfectly over the suction hose, and drilled a few holes for the water to run through:

A few holes were drilled into the side of the suction hose to minimize the flow into each hole:

This is to prevent the fish getting hurt if they get too close to the suction hose. The more holes, the better, as the flow per hole will be less, and the fish will be able to swim by without getting stuck.

The water flow is strong enough to keep the lid on the hose:

We have these fish in the aquarium at the moment:

• 2 Firemouth cichlids (Thorichthys meeki)
• 2 Blue Acara (Aequidens pulcher)
• 3 Keyhole cichlids (Cleithracara maronii)
• 4 Bleeding Heart tetras (Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma)
• 2 ‘Talking’ catfish (Platydoras armatulus)

They seem to be happy with their new home (see if you can spot the catfish ):

A box has been built around the plant tank to help the plants in the plant tank receive even more light, by trapping the light in the box until it hits the plants instead of lighting up the entire living room:

It’s actually only half a box with the two walls covered with aluminum foil to reflect the light:

The chives seems to be thriving and growing all over the place.

I was sowing runner beans for 2011 and just for fun I sowed a few into net pots filled with coconut fibers for the aquaponics system, just to see what would happen:

The runner beans grew fast, and of course it’s silly to grow runner beans in a system like this, where you only have 50 cm of growing height (20”), so they soon had to be removed again as they were starting to grab onto the grow light:

The roots looked amazing, and developed very quickly:

I just dumped the net pot with roots into a larger pot, and the small runner bean plant is ready to move outside:

The aquaponics system is completed and it’s time for tweaking.

I cut off the edges to be able to exchange each piece individually once they are all floating in the plant tank. Four 3 inch net pots (7.5 cm) fits nicely into one foam sheet, once the holes have been cut with a scalpel:

For the smaller 2 inch net pots (5 cm) I used a hole saw on a power drill instead:

Then it only took a fraction of the time to cut the small holes.

My small production line :

Phew! Finally the floats with net pots are floating on the water in the plant tank:

33 small 2 inch net pots and 16 larger 3 inch net pots are in the tank now. Reconfiguration is easy as each foam sheet can be replaced.

In the meantime Charlotte painted the beast with a layer of white paint. This aquaponics system is now so stylish I think it could rightfully be referred to as an iFood :

We were in a bit of a hurry as our appointment with the guy, who was willing to sell us the fish we wanted for the fish tank, was coming closer, so off to nursery to pick up a lot of herbs to make to the system more complete and ready for the fish:

With the grow lights installed and the white paint it’s beginning to look like a pretty neat installation after all:

It’s finally time to add the fish…

I’m using a Pondlab 200 water test kit from NT Labs which makes it possible to test 6 different parameters:

1. Acidity (pH)
2. General Hardness (GH)
3. Alkalinity (KH)
4. Nitrite (NO₂)
5. Nitrate (NO₃)
6. Ammonium (NH₄)

The backside of the box shows what you have to do to make each test, along with color scales to find the correct value:

You’ll need to add one or more reagents for each test:

The test kit includes a log for your measurements and a very informative sheet explaining the background for testing each parameter:

(I’m not getting paid to promote this kit I just think it’s cool…)

I used a straw to fill each test tube with water directly from the aquarium and a kitchen timer to tell me when each test was done:

It’s actually easier to get a full cup of aquarium water and then go and sit down at the table instead of bending over the aquarium the whole time, so I’ll do that for the next tests. Some of the tests will take up to 10 minutes before the result is ready.

These are the results from my first measurements of degassed water, but without any fish in the water:

• pH: 7.5
• Ammonia: 0.1
• Nitrite: 0.0
• Nitrate: 0.0
• KH: 3.5 °DH
• GH: 5.0 °DH
• Temperature: 23 °C (74 °F)

pH: We’re aiming at a pH value between 6.5 and 6.8 because of the type of fish and plants we selected already, so it seems that there’s a long way down from 7.5, and we’re not sure exactly how to lower this parameter.

Ammonia: This is good. Ammonia is toxic to the fish and must be oxidated into nitrite quickly by nitrosomonas bacteria. 1.0 would be alarming, and 5.0 would be dangerous.

Nitrite: Also good. If there haven’t been any ammonia in the water there won’t be any nitrite because it’s oxidated ammonia. A nitrite spike is expected when fish are added to the water, but the nitrite should soon be oxidated to nitrate by nitrobacter bacteria (or nitrospira?). 1.0 would be alarming, and 4.0 would be dangerous.

Nitrate: Also good. Nitrate is oxidated nitrite and since no nitrite was ever present there won’t be any nitrate in the water. If the level of nitrate goes up and keeps going up it’s because the plant tank is not doing its job of removing the nitrate from the water. The plants need to take up the nitrate through their roots (the N in N-P-K fertilizer).

KH and GH: Don’t ask (yet)

Temperature: A heating element has been dumped into the aquarium and set at 25 °C. It probably needs some time to get the temperature up.

We’re now ready to prepare the floats for the plant tank and add some bacteria.

I was worried that the fish wouldn’t stay far enough away from the hose end and would get sucked into or onto the hose and get hurt. I decided to fit some kind of protection, and look what I found in the supermarket :

What a beauty. I’m not going to brew any tea with that one though. Half of it, and some steel wire will do the trick:

The sieve with steel wire is fastened to the hose with a cable binder:

And yes, I know what it looks like, but it’s the suction side, not the pressure side, remember?

Many rocks and stones have been added to the aquarium and small caves have been built, because the fish we want to have in this aquaponics system prefer to have places to hide:

The next thing I have to do is fix the lights, as some of the power cords were damaged due to being moved around all the time while setting up the aquarium.

We wanted to add some roots to the aquarium to try to recreate a real and natural looking environment, so we threw in a few pieces of wood that we found in the forest:

The problem is that the wood keeps floating since it’s not saturated with water:

The root to the right seems to be able to stay submerged. The other two are probably branches or stems.

The wood was left in the water in the aquarium for two weeks to allow it to absorb water to make it heavier so that it would sink to the bottom. What happened instead was this:

Nasty mold and what is probably tannin leaking into the water, changing the color of the water to light yellow:

Pretty nasty setup and delay before we’ll be able to add fish to the system.

The floating pieces of wood have been thrown out and the water has been changed. New roots from the pet store will be added together with stones to create the right look.

And now I’ll go open the door for the postman – he’s here with the water test equipment and nitrobacter

This ebook on how to grow tomatoes is written by Lucia Grimmer and Annette Welsford. Lucia has a Masters Degree in Plant Pathology and works as a technical nutrition specialist in the fertilizer industry. Annette has a partial degree in Horticulture. For me as an amateur grower this puts some weight behind the 37,000 words on the 73 pages. I paid $34.90 + $8.72 VAT to get the ebook in .pdf format down on my PC. You can get the ebook here: How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes

It’s a very comprehensive book with many details so I’ll limit myself and only talk about the things that were new to me.

Definitions

A term I often see when reading about tomatoes is determinate versus indeterminate. In the book there’s a good clarification of what this means:

• Determinate types are the low ones, up to 1 meter. The tomatoes are picked over a few weeks in a concentrated crop.
• Indeterminates grow up to 5 meters and are picked over 12 to 20 weeks.
• Semi-determinates grow up to 2 meters and are picked over 2 to 6 weeks.

Water

There’s a lot of information on watering in the book but some things stood out to me because I realized that I have probably made a huge mistake earlier on with my tomatoes, and potatoes for that matter.

To water correctly you need to soak to a depth of 15-20 cm. So far so good. But you need to do it early in the morning, and only the soil must be watered. No water on the leaves, for God’s sake. If the leaves do get wet it’ll dry off during the day. That’s why you should water in the morning. The problem with wet leaves is that it will be a heaven for fungus and disease spores. If you have read about my 2010 tomato disaster you’ll know what I’m talking about. Drip irrigation, mulching to prevent soil splashing, and water in the morning. That’s the way to do it.

Reproduction

Pollination is still a confusing subject to me. I don’t know if it gets any clearer but apparently tomatoes are self-pollinating according to the book, because the flowers contain both the male and female organs. At least it’s beginning to make sense to me, why a heirloom variety can stay with one grower for a lifetime without outside DNA material. But then again, you wouldn’t want that with humans, right? Weaknesses would build up, but I guess tomatoes can handle that somehow.

And a good tip on propagation: Save your clippings and dip them in a seaweed solution or plant hormone powder. Then plant them in a pot, and you’ll soon have en new tomato plant. That’s easy

Fruits

The advice on the actual tomato fruits goes against what I believed you should do, but the authors recommend picking the fruit before they even have the right color. Thereby the plant will focus its energy on the remaining fruits. Makes sense. The picked fruits should be kept away from sunlight or they’ll overheat and ripen unevenly. Makes sense too. Green tomatoes should be placed in a warm location to ripen at 18 – 21 C (64 – 70 F).

Tips & Tricks

• One way to plant out your tomato seedlings earlier in the season is to use a ‘wall of water’. It’s a device with several vertical tubes filled with water surrounding each pot. The water absorbs heat during the day and releases it during the night.
• The book also has a tip on compost that’s new to me: Earthworms hate onions. So keep onion scraps out of the compost.
• If you use red plastic as mulch on the soil below your plants they’ll think they’re overcrowded and grow even more. I think it has something to do with the color of the fruits?
• In an organic garden you should consider using neem oil / margosa oil if you want to actively fight pests. It has been used in India for a long time against almost any type of insect.
• A greenhouse made from polyethylene has several advantages: Low cost, ease of replacement, high light transmission and good heat retention. I didn’t like the artificial look, but with all these advantages it’s quite interesting compared to traditional glass.

What I LIKE about How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes

• It comforting to know that even the experts from the industry agree that the quality of supermarket tomatoes is very low these days (no flavour, few varieties, hard as apples).
• A chapter about biodynamic growing is included.
• Quote: “The advent of Genetically Modified Food is a revolutionary change to our food that offers no nutritional improvement, but increases the profitability and market power of global seed and chemical companies. Changes include incorporation of pesticides and weedicides within the DNA of the plant. If the ingredients and chemicals were properly labeled, like our processed food, some might be defined as pesticides!” Oh? And we’re supposed to eat that?…
• It comes with a huge online variety database
• The book covers the whole world and considers different growing conditions depending on location.
• Great info on heirloom versus hybrids.
• Easy to read and understand.
• Thorough nutrition problem key to use if you find sick looking plants, so that you can diagnose and treat the problems.
• Includes organic bug killing recipes.

What I DON’T like about How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes

• Some of the text on the illustrations is unreadable.
• It’s important with references but I prefer to have all of them in the last chapter and not ind the middle of the book.
• Pictures and charts should have a higher resolution in the .pdf version.
• The book mentions that drowned snails can be tossed into the compost heap. I don’t think that would be a good idea as they would attract slugs that would eat the dead ones. At least that’s what Arion lusitanicus would do.

Who should buy How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes

It’s a very comprehensive book and a lot of the information is not directly related to tomatoes but of course if you’re serious about growing tomatoes you would need to know all of that too. And the specifics about tomatoes are in there too, so if you want to build a business around growing tomatoes you’re all set. A complete beginner could probably do with half the price, half the number of pages and half the details. The fertilizing scheme alone makes my head spin, despite the fact that I’ve already grown almost 10 kilos of tomatoes.

I doubt I’ll ever need another book on tomato growing so if you serious, knock yourself out and buy this one. If you haven’t grown a single red one yet you could probably do with less.

You can get the ebook here: How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes